


Insomnia

by pendrecarc



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fairy Tale Curses, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-02-26 20:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18723955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendrecarc/pseuds/pendrecarc
Summary: In the third year of Queen Aurora’s reign, a courier came from the court of Prince Philip with a formal offer of marriage. He sent gifts of jewels and fine fabric; of rich spices that had never before been set on the tables of her landlocked court; and, best of all, a book bound in tooled leather, whose pages spoke of the history of her realm: its rulers and its common folk, the wars they had fought and the peace they had made, the old magic rooted into their fields and laid between every stone of their great castle.And, though briefly and only vaguely, of the Moorchildren who had woven that magic.





	Insomnia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Damkianna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/gifts).



In the third year of Queen Aurora’s reign, a courier came from the court of Prince Philip with a formal offer of marriage. He sent gifts of jewels and fine fabric; of rich spices that had never before been set on the tables of her landlocked court; and, best of all, a book bound in tooled leather, whose pages smelled of dust and age and whose ink was faded almost to the yellow of the parchment on which it sat, but which when inspected under good light spoke of the history of her realm: its rulers and its common folk, the wars they had fought and the peace they had made, the old magic rooted into their fields and laid between every stone of their great castle. And, though briefly and only vaguely, of the Moorchildren who had woven that magic.

The Queen’s heart ached. Setting the book aside she ordered one of the finest bedchambers to be prepared for His Highness’ courier, and then summoned her ministers into private council.

They sat around the long oval table as they had a hundred times before, and she asked each of them in turn for their guidance.

“There is much to recommend Philip,” said the Minister of Trade, thinking not of the prince himself but of the great harbor at his capital.

“His coffers are certainly fuller than ours,” said the Minister of the Exchequer, thinking of the losses he had underwritten to meet Stefan’s demands.

“There may be a more advantageous match yet to make, Your Majesty,” said the Minister of War, thinking of the border with the Moor and the threat that hung ever-present over it.

The chancellor held her tongue. She had been castellan in King Stefan’s time, and the announcement of her new position had come as a surprise to most of the realm, but not to those who knew her and knew the Queen. The chancellor had her own thoughts about Philip’s suitability, of course, but she also felt that in this, the realm would be better off if the Queen trusted her own judgment.

As she had a hundred times before, the Queen smiled upon them and thanked them for their wisdom. If the smile was less bright, and her eyes far more weary, than on the first council she had called after her coronation, well, surely that was to be expected. The pressures of authority were varied and never-ending, and that untried girl of sixteen could not have hoped to keep the innocence of youth for long.

The Queen told them she would make her answer in the morning and retired to her chambers with her ladies-in-waiting. She sat in the low-backed chair beside her window and let them brush her golden hair with clever fingers, listening to their laughter as they discussed Prince Philip’s broad shoulders and strong jaw, the knights he was said to have unseated in tourneys at his home court, the gallant expressions in which his proposal had been couched.

“And do you favor him, Your Majesty?” asked the youngest of the ladies. The Queen met her eyes in the mirror and laughed a little at the guileless enthusiasm she saw there.

“He’s well favored indeed,” said the Queen; and then Aurora said, “I like him. But I don’t know that I could love him.”

This stilled their tongues, and her hair was plaited and her nightdress put on in silence. When they left her she lay back in the great canopied bed and closed her eyes. She was so weary that she thought now, at least, she might find more than a passing rest; but on that night as on so many others, the Queen could not sleep.

She kept a lamp near at hand for just this purpose, and even dizzy with fatigue it was the work of a moment for her to light it from the still-glowing coals of her fire. She rose and made her way down the familiar halls. It was the darkest hour of the night, and almost everyone from the highest lord to the humblest scullery-maid had found their beds, and in them the sleep that eluded her. Those few guards and servants still awake had grown used to the sight of their young queen at midnight, pale in the light of a single flame, and returned her ready smile without surprise or comment. Her feet led her, as they so often did, to the high tower room her father had hemmed in with locks and barred windows. Aurora had ordered the iron stripped away, the dust cleaned from the corners and the sconces filled with candles. She moved slowly from niche to niche, lighting each wick until the room was aglow. Only then did she turn to the great glass cabinet that stood in the center.

She opened the doors and watched the play of candlelight on the wings, as it drew greens and blues and deepest violets from deepest bronze; and then she reached to touch them, feathers smooth and cold against her fingertips.

“It’s very strange,” she said, “that I should feel so alone, as though I had no-one to talk to, when I have more people in my life than ever before, and any of them would be happy to hear my thoughts and share their own opinions. But I do feel alone. Did you, I wonder?” Maleficent had been alone but for Diaval all those years, watching over the child she had cursed; and then oh, she and Aurora had _talked_ , but she had shared less of her true self than the Queen did now with her ministers and handmaids. It was foolish to feel pity for one who had done her such harm, and who was now beyond the reach of either compassion or cruelty. But then Aurora had always been prone to that sort of foolishness, and even now she did not think this was cause for regret.

As she was telling herself this, she started, for the long contour feathers had shifted beneath her palm, and she almost thought they had moved of their own accord. But a moment later she could not be sure of it. She crossed to the tower’s tall window and threw it open, blinking as a cold night breeze flooded into her face; and she turned, hopeful and frightened all at once, to see if the wings would stir again in the air off the Moors. She stared until her tired eyes began to water, with no result, and then laid her head down on the windowsill and found a rare short stretch of real sleep.

Early the next morning she sent for the book Philip had given her and carried it to the brightest window in her chambers to turn slowly through its pages. The script was archaic and difficult, and an hour later she sighed with regret and closed it only two chapters in. She issued an invitation for the courier to join her and the court at breakfast.

“I thank you for your efforts, sir, as I thank your prince for the honor he has done me,” she said. “And I am very sorry, but I find I can’t accept his offer.”

The courier bowed deeply and acknowledged her refusal in terms that suggested Prince Philip would not be surprised. When she asked him to return the gifts with her apologies, he refused; and when she insisted he bowed lower still. “The jewels, silks, and spices I will take with me, Your Majesty, but the book I cannot. It is not Prince Phillip’s gift to you, but an item that was given into his safekeeping on his first visit here.”

“Given by whom?” asked Aurora, curious.

“By King Stefan’s own librarian, Your Majesty. He urged my Prince to take it in secret. Philip swore he would return it only to you, when you had ascended to the throne and when your reign was secure. This is that time, and he bid me return it whatever your answer might be. Keep it with his best wishes and mine.”

She accepted this, and returned with the courier such gifts as seemed appropriate, and to her formal statement of refusal added a personal letter she hoped would soften his disappointment. She meant to keep this friendship, both for herself and for their realms.

When she had done this she thought long and hard on what the courier had said. She could not remember her father having had a librarian. A library, of course; but it was only a poor collection and had nothing nearly so rare or interesting as this history. She supposed there might have been someone to care for it once. Those early days in her father’s care had been so confused. First there was her muddled waking, and then days spent in her tower forbidden even her aunts’ company and Prince Philip’s as her father rode out with his men to drive the threat back from the Moors. For, he had told her, Maleficent had been the worst of it, but even with her death there was still danger.

Aurora thought long and hard on this, and after completing the duties of the day she retired to her chambers to pore over the pages of that book.

The next day she sent a rider out to the borders where the three pixies who had raised her now lived in a sun-drenched valley. It was always a joy to them to be with her, little though they understood the cares of her present life, so they came at once. She feasted them in her private study on fruit nectars and petals of sweet clover. “But why do you look so tired and unhappy, my dear?” asked Flittle.

“It’s to be expected of these humans,” said Knotgrass sagely. “They’re like mayflies, you know. Nineteen years to them might as well be nine hundred to us.”

“Don’t think I’ve squandered your gift, Aunt Flittle,” said Aurora, smiling. “I’m happy enough, believe me. But I’ve had so much to learn since you brought me home, and the truth is my father left his kingdom in poorer circumstances than I might have wished. That’s why I asked you here.”

Knotgrass reached across the table to brush feather-light against Aurora’s hand. “Well, of course all our wisdom is yours, everything your pretty little head can hold. What is it you need?”

She brought out the book she had been given and turned to a page she had read and reread a dozen times. “Is it true, Aunts, that there once was peace between my people and the Moorchildren?”

“There’s peace now.”

Thistlewhit laughed. “Or we couldn’t be here, all in the open!”

“Well, we’re certainly not at war,” Aurora agreed gently. Though in the back of her mind marched a long column of soldiers, the army her father had raised and she had stood down but not—entirely—disbanded. With them marched still longer columns of figures, of the funds needed for their pay and the food needed for their keep. And in the distance the looming specter of the Moors, which she still wanted to love. “But that’s not quite the same as being at peace, is it? What I want to know is whether there was real peace and cooperation. Because it says here that the Moorchildren were invited guests of the first kings, and that they helped to lay the foundations of my castle and protect it against all evil that might come to the realm. Is that true?”

The fairies looked at one another in confusion. “Well, it may be,” said Knotgrass reluctantly. “When I say nine hundred years, mind you, I don’t mean I’ve been flitting about for _quite_ that long.”

“Though you’d never know it to look at her!” Flittle whispered, sending Thistlewhit into a cascade of giggles.

“So you don’t know? But is it possible?”

“Oh, naturally, naturally,” said Knotgrass with determined dignity. “It might have been done. But who’s to say whether it _was_.”

“What I’m trying to understand, Aunts, is how the disagreement with the Moorchildren first came about, and when. I am nearly finished with this book, and it says not a word of that. You know I—I’ve been to the Moors, many times, and I was never afraid.” Never but the last time, when she had demanded the truth of her Fairy Godmother, and that had been a different sort of fear. “But then you told me of a great evil.”

“Yes, dear.” The pixies were uncharacteristically subdued.

“When did it come about, the evil in the Moors? If the first kings were friends with the Fair Folk, and if _you_ came from there, it can’t always have been like it is now.” Half-shrouded in darkness, the little of it she could see beyond the walls. And she thought sometimes it was darker and more forbidding, and somehow more melancholy, than when she had been a child.

“Well it wasn’t always,” said Flittle, before Knotgrass could reply. “I can tell you that.”

Knotgrass drew herself up, making the most of her eight inches. “When I was a girl, my dear, it was the happiest place in the world. I remember it very well. And I can’t say as we were _friendly_ with the humans, poor unmagical things, but we left well enough alone and didn’t make a fuss as long as they did the same.”

“But then how did it happen?” She did not want to ask, but that had never stopped her before. Those about her might mince words out of deference to her station or care for her peace of mind or the desire to deceive, but she’d never seen the virtue in concealing her own thoughts, and she had come to think the only way to cultivate straightforwardness in others was to offer it herself. “Tell me, Aunts—was it all Maleficent's doing?”

They looked at one another with the unease she had seen occasionally growing up, and which she had realized later had happened whenever they had to avoid the subject of her parents. “It started in King Henry’s time,” said Knotgrass.

Thistlewhit fluttered violently in a shiver of discomfort or of anger. “It was worse in her father’s! What? You know it was true.”

“It wasn’t Maleficent who _started_ it.”

“But it was she who did _that_ to the Moors!”

“She’d never have done it if King Stefan—”

The three of them stopped talking at once, and only stared at her guiltily. “Aunts,” said Aurora very gently, “won’t you tell me everything?”

As stories go, the one they told her was more confusing than some. But while it was less practiced than the description of the great wars against the Moorchildren of which her father had told her, and filled with much more irrelevant detail than her courtiers’ measured descriptions of darkness and danger, she thought she gleaned some truth from it.

She had known her father was not a good king. She had loved him: because he was hers; because she saw how lonely he had made himself; because he loved her with a single-mindedness that would have frightened her if she had not come to pity him first; and because it was in her nature. But she had never been at risk of worshiping him. She had come to him far too late in adolescence, never having painted a shining portrait of fatherhood in her imagination, and they had met under circumstances that had revealed too much of his flaws. He had died too soon for her to take a true impression of his rule, but since her own coronation she had seen the struggles of her commonfolk and all the things that might have been done to assist them. She had seen the hostility and suspicion in the court, and how it had festered without anyone to address it. She hadn’t known at first how to solve these problems, but it had occurred to her that her father ought to have had some idea.

It had never occurred to her that so many of those problems were of his own creation.

Aurora heard them out in silence. When their tale had wound to its circuitous close, she thanked them for their honesty, stood, and went to the window of her study, which overlooked the great valley, the forbidding wall of thorns, and the dark Moors beyond it.

Thistlewhit flew up to perch on her shoulder, stroking a few strands of gold back from her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said very quietly.

Aurora shook her head. “I needed to know this. And I think I see some hope in it.”

“Hope?”

“Not so long ago there was peace between humans and the Moorchildren. There can be again. And if it’s true that there was once friendship between them—well, I can try to bring that back, too! Aunt, I’ve been hearing ever since I took the throne that I must turn my thoughts out to other kingdoms, to make alliances and shore up my defenses. Whenever I’ve asked about the Moors, right here beside my own lands, I’ve been told as long as they aren’t a threat we ought to leave them alone. But I’m sure now that’s a mistake.” A little, wry smile came to the corner of her mouth. “And I might have to find new friends after what I did today.”

“What’s that? What’ve you done?”

“Nothing so terrible! I’ve only turned down an offer of marriage.”

Flittle’s wings beat in quick surprise. “Was it Philip, then?”

“Yes, of course. I knew he was going to ask. I’ve known it almost since I woke in my bed those years ago, and Father told me everything that had happened.” The things she had missed while asleep! It was almost a blessing that she slept so poorly now. “And I kept thinking that I would _have_ to say yes, because if I don’t marry my own true love, then who could I marry?”

“Your true love?” Thistlewhit repeated.

“Why yes,” said Aurora in surprise. “He must have been, to wake me with that kiss. And I kept expecting to feel that sort of love for him, and never did. I suppose it was his love that mattered, and not mine. And I’m sorry for that, you know, but as grateful to him as I am, I want to feel more than gratitude for the one I marry.”

“Aurora, dear,” said Knotgrass, flitting up beside her, “why is it you think _Philip_ is the one who woke you? Do you remember his kiss?”

As Aurora shook her head, Thistlewhit squeaked and clung to her collar to keep her seat. “It was all so confused when I woke. There were soldiers everywhere, and my father was shouting and running from the room, and then there wasn’t a familiar face to be seen. I didn’t even know how I’d gotten there.” Tears started in her eyes, but it had never been her habit to conceal them. “And then I heard her voice in the hall. Maleficent’s. She cried out, and I couldn’t tell if it was anger or pain. That must have been when he struck her down.” The tears had begun to roll down her cheeks. Flittle handed her a handkerchief the length of her thumb. She took it gratefully, but she knew better than to blow her nose into it. “And then you were at the door, and so was Philip—”

“But who told you _he_ was the one who broke the curse?”

“My father did,” said Aurora. She was beginning to frown. “And who else could it have been?”

Knotgrass was shaking her head. “It can’t have been him. We brought him here, you know.”

“We asked him to try it!”

“But it didn’t work,” said Thistlewhit, as though the disappointment was still fresh. “We thought it would, but it didn’t.”

Aurora looked at each of them in turn to test the truth of this. “Father asked me not to speak of it to Philip. He said the curse was a sore point between our kingdoms and the breaking of it was a matter of delicacy.” And she had preferred not to speak of it herself, because it felt to her like a private, painful thing. But if it had not been Philip— “Aunts. Did you see Maleficent arrive?”

They glanced at one another. For once, Flittle and Thistlewhit didn’t hesitate to defer to Knotgrass. “We left before she got there, dear.”

Flittle shivered. “And glad I was to miss her, too!”

“He told me she came to be certain her curse had taken hold,” Aurora said, quietly and fiercely. “He told me he found her on the doorstep and struck her down with iron before she could enter, and then he called for his guard. But he also told me she caused the war with the Moors and that it was Philip who woke me.” It was like the stones of the castle had been rearranged under her feet. Instead of being off balance, it was as though, all unexpected, she stood firmer and saw more clearly than she had in years. “I must find the truth of it.” 

The hour had grown late. Aurora called for three cushions to be brought to her chambers, each in a different shade of silk and filled with the softest goose down. Her aunts were soon sound asleep, and from her own bed she could hear their snoring. But for being several octaves higher, it was so like the night-time sounds of her childhood that she smiled as she stared up at the rich canopy above her head and wished for sleep herself.

It was hovering just out of her reach when Knotgrass sat up with a great snort. “Oh! What have you done?”

“Who, me?” came Thistlewhit’s voice, only half awake.

“ _I_ haven’t done a thing,” said Flittle, all indignant.

“One of you has!” said Knotgrass. “I can _smell_ it from here. _Someone’s_ cast an enchantment, and it wasn’t me.”

Aurora sat up in her bed as they continued to quarrel. The argument was reaching a familiar rhythm when Flittle let out a shrill cry and stopped the others in their tracks. “Oh!” she said again. “But it’s not _us_ , you know. It’s _her_.” And she pointed straight at Aurora.

A moment later they were hovering all about her, sniffing at her hair and face and hands. “I haven’t been casting any enchantments, Aunts, I promise you. I wouldn’t know where to start,” she assured them, biting her lip against a smile at the sight of Knotgrass scrunching up her whole face, the better to smell her with.

“You might not have cast it yourself,” said Thistlewhit thoughtfully. “It might have been cast on _you_.”

“But that’s over and done with, isn’t it?”

Knotgrass snorted. “Oh, this isn’t Maleficent. Not nearly strong enough for that. I didn’t notice it at all earlier. It was only when you fell asleep—”

Flittle shrieked again. Throwing herself at Aurora, she put out both her arms wide and seized the girl’s face between her hands. Then she did her best to shake her. “Oh, no! You mustn’t fall asleep like that, not again, not ever. Dearest Aurora, promise us you won’t fall asleep.”

“I can promise that easily enough! I haven’t had a night’s sound sleep since I came to my father’s castle.”

“Oooooh,” Flittle said, and let her go. Knotgrass and Thistlewhit exchanged a look of great significance.

Understanding at once, Aurora asked, “You think that is the enchantment? And—maybe I would sleep again, if it was broken?”

“I couldn’t say,” said Knotgrass. “But we don’t have the prince here to break it with true love’s kiss, do we.”

“He didn’t break it _last_ time,” hissed Flittle.

Weary beyond belief, Aurora rose from the bed where she had spent so many troubled nights. “We’ll discuss it in the morning, Aunts. You must want your sleep, and I will find other things to do.”

Those things brought her back again to that book and to a brace of candles, and back to that high tower room where she so often kept vigil. She sat cross-legged before the wings and set the candles around her, and in their flickering light she pieced together the last chapters of that history, which ended before even King Henry’s time and gave no answers to her burning questions.

And then she turned the page and saw the piece of parchment that had been hidden there, its ink still crisp and clear.

Her heart in her throat, Aurora held it close and snatched one of the candles up beside it.

 _Princess_ , it read.

_Long years I have served your father, as I served the king before him. I have learned many secrets of your kingdom and the forces that made it, and I have seen King Stefan burn and bury them for what he thought was the good of his people, and especially the good of his daughter. And I have kept silent. But now I cannot._

_I have studied what little magic I can from the books my predecessors gathered. I swore to your father for years there was nothing I could do to break the curse laid upon you, and to my sorrow this was the truth. But now the curse has been lifted, and the one who cast it is in Stefan's power, and he is asking me for something new._

_Humans have little magic and cannot cast enchantments of our own. But I have learned, and I told your father, that our arts can sometimes turn an enchantment back where it came. I told him it would only be a shadow of the original, and I told him the risks are strange and unpredictable and my efforts might rebound in undesirable ways. But he insists the only way to be certain of your safety—and of his own—is to turn the enchantment that is broken on the one who cast it, and bury her deep in the Moors in secret, so no-one will think to venture there again. He insists I must come with him to enact his revenge._

_I value my life at very little once we have come out again._

_I hope you will read and take this book to heart as I have, Princess. We were stronger when the Moorchildren were our friends. King Stefan is not the man to see that any more than King Henry was before him. I pray this message will be delivered to you in good time and that you will know how to respond._

She stared at the scrawled signature until the candle guttered and died, thinking on everything she had learned. Then she laid the letter down and went to the glass case. Aurora laid both her hands flat on the wings. They felt warm to her, and living.

“Did you love me, after all?” she whispered, her voice trembling. “Is that why you came? And—have you been lying alone all this time, waiting for me to come?”

By dawn she knew what she must do.

***

The Queen called her councilors together once again and explained to them what she had learned.

“I wish to go into the Moors and right this wrong,” she said to the captain of her guard. “I’ve been there many times before, and I’m not afraid. But if you prefer to send men with me, I’ll understand.”

The captain of the guard looked uneasily to the ministers gathered around her table. “It’s a dangerous undertaking, Your Majesty. I’d say two score men if we can spare them, all well armed, and of course I myself—”

She shook her head. “This isn’t a military expedition, sir. Half a dozen men at most, and only to ease your mind. And most important: none of them will carry iron.”

“Your Majesty!”

“Not one of my subjects will carry iron into the Moorlands, not while I live. We may wield it here at home for our own protection, but we won’t bring war to the Fair Folk.” And very firmly, when he would have objected, “I won’t be moved on this.”

“Your Majesty,” he said in obvious distress. “I can’t ask my men to walk into that place unarmed. Not even at your bidding.”

“Very well,” said the Queen. “Then I will go alone.”

Once her mind was made up, she wasted no time setting things in motion. There were arrangements to be made for her absence, if it was no more than the few days she expected. And arrangements to be made if it was permanent, which many at her court seemed to fear. The man she named her heir was gently-born, her father’s age or somewhat older, and had administered several large estates in King Stefan’s stead. She trusted his judgment and hadn’t yet seen his ambitions outweigh his fairness. She spent the better part of a day closeted with her chancellor discussing the most pressing matters to be dealt with immediately, and how those matters would change if she failed to return. And then she prepared to leave.

The morning of her departure she bid an affectionate farewell to her ladies-in-waiting, laughing when several of them begged to go with her. She knew them well by now, and knew that this earnest desire would fade when they had to bed down beneath the stars, or wriggle through the writhing branches of a swamp willow, or ford the crystal-cold waters of one of the fairy rivers. But she knew they meant well, so she did not say this aloud.

Her favorite saddle-horse waited for her at the gate. He was a slender palfrey, ungelded but astonishingly gentle when in Aurora’s company, and black as any raven’s wing; he had been found wandering the palace courtyard shortly after Aurora herself arrived, and as his owner had never come forward and he seemed to have a preference for the young princess, she had named him Sable and taken him as her own. He looked at her now with his liquid, knowing eyes as she stroked his soft cheek beneath the bridle. “Carry me swiftly, now, and carefully,” she whispered into his ear. “We ride on an important quest.” And she leapt lightly into the saddle.

The captain of the guard insisted on accompanying her to the wall of thorns, as she would allow him to carry iron that far. Her aunts came as well, though when she had invited them to join her past the wall they had shivered. “I wish we could,” said Flittle.

“We aren’t welcome there,” said Thistlewhit.

The captain rode in stony silence away from the castle and over the hills, ignoring the chatter of the pixies flitting about his head until they were almost under the shadow of the wall. Then he reined in his horse. Aurora reached over the distance between them and laid her bare hand upon his gauntleted wrist. “Thank you for your care of me,” she said with as much reassurance as she could convey. “Please believe I don’t blame you for stopping here.”

“Did you mean it, Your Majesty?” asked the captain. “That you truly aren’t afraid.”

She hesitated. The question had occupied her sleepless reflections in the early hours of the last several mornings. She had realized it wasn’t true at all. “I’m not afraid for my safety,” she said firmly and honestly. She smiled at him. “Please don’t let it trouble you.” He bowed low.

She kissed each of her aunts in turn, and then she urged Sable forward.

The wall of thorns had grown even wilder since she had last been here, and Aurora could find no convenient gaps. When they were very close she dismounted and approached on foot, peering into the tangle. She reached out and grasped one of the vines in both hands and gave it an almighty tug, to very little effect. She braced herself and would have pulled harder, but there came a firm nudge at her shoulder. “I suppose you think you can do better?” she asked Sable. He let out a low huff of impatience and pushed forward. As he moved into the thicket, the vines began to draw back, leaving just enough room for him to pass. He rolled his eyes at her as though laughing. Startled, she seized a handful of his mane to pull herself up and onto his back. As Sable carried her past the border of her kingdom, thorns tugging at the fabric of her gown, Aurora threw one last look over her shoulder, and then the sight of her captain and her aunts was swallowed up by the grasping vines.

She closed her eyes and pressed her body forward over Sable’s neck. She could feel the heavy wool of her overdress giving way, and then the fine linen of her underdress tearing like gossamer, and then the thorns began to scrape along the flesh below. Her hair, which had been braided in a great crown all about her head, was dragged from its pins as they went. Every so often a few strands would catch and be torn from her scalp, the sudden sharp pain almost a relief from the relentless stinging of her limbs and sides. Once, careless, she let her hand fall away from the horse’s shoulder, just far enough that a thorn was able to prick the tip of her outstretched finger. She screamed then, and stifled it by burying her face against Sable’s neck where she could breathe in the scent of his sweat and warm flesh.

She had seen over the peak of the thorns just that morning, looking out from her window. She knew the wall could not be more than a handful of yards deep. Yet as she began to count the steady beats of Sable’s gait, all out of pace with her wildly pounding heart, Aurora began to question the evidence of her own eyes. And then she began to question her memory. And then her very self seemed to be shredding to ribbons with each step.

And then it was over.

Aurora fell from her horse almost the moment she had room to do so. Rolling to her back, she stared up at the deepening blue of the sky, speared through on one side by the looming hedge of thorns. Sable’s soft muzzle brushed inquiringly against her cheek. She reached up to touch it, and only then did she let herself begin to cry.

When she had no tears left, she sat up and began to take stock of her condition and the place in which she found herself. Her clothing was in tatters, and the skin beneath it scored and stinging; but she had bled very little, and knew the wounds were not serious. Her boots of good leather were still in one piece. Of most concern was the loss of her saddlebags, which must have been torn from Sable’s back and held all the food and drink she had brought with her, enough for a sevennight if she used it wisely. Now she must go hungry or hope the Moors would welcome and sustain her even without their Shieldmaiden at her side.

It was near dark. She couldn’t tell if she and Sable had been traveling so long, or if there was just some eerie quality to the light here, as though everything came to her eyes through a haze of smoke. She peered about her for some sign of the Moors she had once known, of the great lagoon and the airfish and the glowing lights of the smallest pixies; but she saw only a weary tangle of branches overhead and a rough mat of grasses underfoot.

“Hello,” she whispered. Her throat pained her, but she mustered a smile. “I’ve come home.”

There was no answer but a sullen wind in the leaves.

Aurora sighed, and grasping one of the lower-hanging vines she pulled herself to her feet. Sable let out a horsey huff of breath that she chose to hear as comforting rather than impatient. Her legs were shaking too badly to mount as she usually would, but at a touch from her he knelt until she was secure on his back, then rose carefully to his feet.

As they rode deeper into the Moors she began to see signs of the life and beauty she’d once known: glimpses of fairy lights at the corner of her eye, or quicksilver splashes in the streams they passed. “Do you suppose it’s only the borders that were blighted?” she asked hopefully. Sable twitched his long ears.

He was finding it harder going as the ground grew damper and the solid places to lay his feet grew fewer and farther between. She began to think it might have been more practical for her to walk. “Or if only you had wings! Though I wouldn’t have made it this far without you, would I, Sable?” she asked, patting his withers. Then she slipped down from his back, wincing as her torn side dragged against the saddle. “I think we’ve come far enough for one day.” She found a glade with a little pool of clear water just as the light faded. Removing his saddle and bridle, she rubbed away the sweat and dirt of the day. For herself she could do nothing but drink and wash the dried blood and tears from her face. She bedded down as comfortably as she could at the foot of a tree, then lay awake to the sound of Sable’s teeth chomping at the grass.

Some part of her had hoped sleep would come more easily here in this place she had loved so much. She thought of evenings spent at her Fairy Godmother’s—Maleficent’s—side, hands clasped together as she rested her head on Maleficent’s shoulder and fought off sleep, because she would have to run home before her aunts started to wonder where she had gone. But all she could think of was that her hand was empty now, and her head rested only on a saddle blanket, and that she felt so very lonely and tired.

She must have dozed off sometime before dawn, though only in the fitful way she was used to. She was startled into full awareness by a strange, whistling call that came from very nearby. She sat up and found herself face-to-face with a hawk perched in the lowest branch of the tree. It was as long as her arm, and pitch black, and was staring at her with its head held upside-down. Startled, she laughed aloud. The sound carried on the breeze and the whole glade seemed to come alive with it.

“Good morning, Sir Hawk,” she said gravely. “How kind of you to join me for breakfast.” Then, glancing about her, “But what have you done with my horse?” For Sable was nowhere to be seen. At first she wasn’t alarmed, and only went looking through the trees at the outskirts of the glade. But when she stumbled over his harness lying behind a tuft of grass she began to grow truly worried.

“If you don’t mean to help me, you might at least be quiet,” she told the hawk, which had been whistling at her in increasing irritation for the last several minutes. He let out a peremptory shriek that quieted her instead, and he gave her such a look that she thought if he was human he would have been rolling his eyes. He launched himself into the air and landed, firmly and a little painfully, on her shoulder, and craned his head around to stare at her.

And then she remembered where she was.

“Oh!” she said, very softly. “Sable?” He fluffed his feathers and gave a throaty chortle. “Well, I did wish you had wings, didn’t I?” She laughed, though she was as tired as ever, and very hungry. “Then let’s be on our way.”

As she had no more need of the saddle, she fashioned a pad out of the blanket and some of the leather so Sable could perch on her arm without his talons adding to her list of small hurts. And as she continued deeper into the Moors he started to fly ahead of her for long minutes at a time. The first time he did this he came back with a little golden fruit of a sort she had eaten there before. It was small and bruised and not quite ripe, but she ate it gladly, both for the sustenance and for the sign there was life left in the Moors.

The second time he came back with the great bulbous stem of a flower, which he’d torn off almost at the root. When she bit into it a sweet milky substance flowed out onto her tongue, and it kept up her strength past midday.

The third time he came back shrieking with rough urgency, and had nothing at all in his talons.

She followed him as quickly as she could, stumbling over the rough ground and occasionally splashing by accident into the swamp. Eventually she dragged herself into a drier stretch of grass and saw what had so alarmed him.

A great iron spike had been driven into the earth. The top of it was as wide across as her hand, and the part that stood above ground came up to her ankle. It had rusted with time and exposure, but the greater damage had been done to everything around it—the grass and the clover and even the soil nearby was charred and smoking.

Aurora darted forward without a thought and seized it in both her hands. She heaved with all her strength, and eventually the stake began to slide up and out of its resting place. It was as tall as her arm was long. Even once she’d freed it from the earth, sweat streaming down her brow, she knew she’d only done so much good because she couldn’t hope to carry it very far. Defeated, she let it fall.

“I am so sorry,” she called aloud, though she had no idea who might hear his words. “I will come back, I swear it, and take it away from here.”

Sable landed again on her shoulder. She could feel him bristling in fear and anger, and he held tight to the leather as she started walking again.

She hadn’t gone twenty yards when she came upon the next stake, driven just as deep. Sable trembled. She reached up to stroke his breast, as much for her own comfort as for his. “I will come back for all of them,” she promised, so low only he could here.

Before long she was following a trail of iron markers. They took her deeper and deeper into the Moors, appearing every so often like cairns marking the edge of farmland. “I suppose my father drove them in when he came here,” she told Sable. “To help him find his way out again, and to be less afraid.” She wondered how much of the Moors' barrenness had been caused by the iron, like flesh pulling back from corruption, and how much of it stemmed from the magic she had come to undo. In either case she would fix this. She would bring more horses, as many as were needed, and load them up with iron, and take it as far from here as it could be carried.

When her feet could take her no farther and the light had faded she stopped again for the night. The hawk slept with his head folded under one wing, perched securely on Aurora’s knee. She envied him his easy sleep, but worse, his talons were very sharp. “You might have chosen something more comfortable,” she said, petting his long tail feathers, and sighed.

She very nearly slept long enough to dream that night. Behind her heavy eyelids floated the images of swirling water and a distant sun, and she felt so terribly alone.

When she woke properly there was something warm, soft, and very heavy beside her. It was as comfortable as she could have wished. Sitting up, she was not entirely surprised to see a hound curled into her side, long and lean and black as coal. When she scratched his ears he stretched luxuriously and yawned, showing great doggy teeth.

“Good morning, Sable,” she said—and then, because she had seen enough to know, “That is, good morning, Diaval.” At his name he whined and gave a long wriggle of his whole body. Aurora did not linger that morning, only ate the rich berries of the bush he sniffed out for her and was on her way.

As she walked the air seemed to grow darker and more oppressive and the iron markers with their great scarring came more frequently. But she had hope even then, because as she walked with Diaval padding along beside her she could sometimes hear the shrill squeak of the pixies who slept in the treetops or the burble of the great moss-creatures that lived half-buried in the mud. If she looked through the heavy branches of the willows lining the path she could see flashes of color that might be the naiads who had once braided her hair or the dryads who had hidden in the roots of the cypress trees and darted out their hands to tickle her feet as she passed, when she was young and the Moors were brighter.

And so she knew she must be drawing closer to her goal, and she had started to believe she might find what she most hoped and dreaded she would see.

It happened just after noon, when she was about to stop for a rest. Diaval froze in his tracks, ears pricked forward and nose flaring, and before she could ask him what he had scented he leapt into motion, all smoothly turning muscle and flashing paws.

Aurora couldn’t hope to keep up with him. She gathered up her skirts in one hand and begged her aching legs to go a little faster, to carry her a little farther. Every so often a long baying call sounded up ahead, or she passed another iron marker, and she knew she was still on the right course.

And then she was splashing into the shallows of the lagoon, and Diaval was running up and down the bank, whining in distress. “I’ve come, I’m here,” she panted. “What is it? Show me!” He bounded chest-deep into the water, then back out again, and he shook himself all over her. Aurora waded obediently out a few yards. The water was clear and shallow here. Her heart raced as though she was still running, and her hands had begun to tremble. “What is it, Diaval?”

He whined with such eagerness and desperation that it brought tears to her eyes. Dashing them from her vision, she looked out over the still surface of the water, and there—a little farther, just beneath the waves—

The sound that came from her throat might have been very like Diaval’s, but she couldn’t hear it over the ungainly splashing she made as she fought her way out from the bank. Her skirts slowed her, the mud sucking at her heels slowed her, _everything_ slowed her and she was already three years later than she should have been, but surely it was not too late—she _could_ not be too late—

And there. Lying at the bottom of waist-deep water, nearly at her feet, was the still, pale form she loved best in the world.

Aurora dragged her up to the surface. She pulled and gasped and with Diaval’s help drew Maleficent out at last onto the bank, and there she fell to her knees.

Maleficent lay limp and silent, the water running in rivulets down her face and throat, the black of her robes mixing with the deep brown of the mud and the tendrils of lagoon-plants that had grown up around her. Her long, dark hair had fallen free, and Aurora pushed it back from her face. “I came,” she said through the tears that suddenly choked her. “I came, like you came for me. Because you did, didn’t you? I should have known you it was you. I should always have known. I _have_ always known. Please, please—” Bending, she pressed her lips once to the pale forehead, and again to the blood-red mouth.

It lay slack at first beneath hers, and Aurora scarcely breathed herself. Then damp lashes fluttered and the eyes beneath them opened wide, clear and green like the sun on fresh-grown leaves.

Maleficent looked up at her all unbelieving, and her mouth trembled. “Hello, beastie.”

Crying and laughing, Aurora bent to kiss her again, and then they were both nearly knocked back into the lagoon when Diaval sprang upon them in his joy.

They stumbled out onto dry land together. Already the old sounds of the Moors came clearer to Aurora’s ears. When she sank down at Maleficent’s feet, too exhausted to stand any longer, she saw the white eye of a new snowdrop opening a few inches from where she sat.

The story came tumbling out from Aurora’s lips, delighted and confused. By the time she was done Diaval was restored to his raven form, darting between the trees and diving in low to brush the edge of his wing against Maleficent’s shoulder. And Maleficent herself listened in silence, Aurora’s damp and golden head resting on her knee, her long white fingers tracing the outline of a cheek or an ear or the beloved turn of a lip. She took great care to avoid the angry scratches that had only just begun to heal.

“And that is all,” said the young Queen, her throat hoarse and her eyelids beginning to droop. “I have told you everything. Can you forgive me?”

“I?” asked Maleficent, startled. She laughed a short and bitter laugh. “Three years to you, but it seems only hours ago you were lying in your bed in a sleep like death. And I put you there. I am the one in need of forgiveness.”

“But you brought me back out again. And even if you hadn’t—you would have it, you know. My forgiveness. My love. All of it, always.” The sweetness of her confession was marred only a little by the sudden yawn that overtook her. “And now say you will come back with me. You will, won’t you? There is so much to be done—and now I won’t need to do it all alone—”

“Yes,” said Maleficent. “Yes, of course I will come with you. I promised we would live together, didn’t I?”

Aurora took her hand from where it rested on her cheek, turned her face, and kissed the palm. Then she closed her eyes. “I’m so glad. Don’t let me sleep too long. I have to return your wings! And there’s so much else to be done, back at my castle and here at home. But not alone.”

“No,” said Maleficent, her voice pitched so low it was nearly drowned by the hiss of cicadas in the trees. “Not alone, not ever again. Sleep now. I’ll be here when you wake.”


End file.
